Planer or Thickness Sander?

It would have to be the planer. That is what is does.

A sander is for finish sanding/thicknessing or leveling surfaces such as panel and frame construction.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Like Gary sez, the planer. Planers are for getting your lumber to the thickness you need in your project. They are not, however, for flattening lumber per se – one side needs to be flat before it goes through the planer. A thickness sander will take off smaller increments of stock, and sand the stock at the same time.

So if you are looking for the ONE tool to get your rough lumber to the correct thickness, it’s the planer!

—Lakey

-- "No Board Left Behind"

Like Gary and Lakey say go with a planer.

You can flatten rough lumber but it is a challenge to do it this way. Gary has posted a blog of a sled that he uses to do stock wider than his jointer can handle.

Hope this helps.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

A sander will not really flatten a board. Just sand the surface. A planer is an essential tool in any woodshop but it doesn’t really do it’s job without its sister tool the jointer.

-- Dust collectors suck.

I’ve used my sander to “plane” highly figured wood to thickness, but it was a time consuming job. The only reason I did it was to prevent the tear out you get from a planer. But if I had to choose, I would go with the planer. If you try using a sander as a planer all of the time, the amount of money you would spend on sand paper would pay for a planer fairly quickly.

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

Planer.

The planer is more for dimensioning while a drum sander is for removing finish or finish sanding and other tasks of the like. Some planers have a finishing speed also but on a drum sander you can’t remove a lot at all per pass. They do work on highly figured woods though but it will take awhile even with a very rough grit.

Planer dimensions and sander finishes.. I would first get a jointer, then planer, then sander

-- making sawdust....

Planer.

Planer.

-- Make things with wood.

I use the planer to quickly get me the required thickness and a drum sander to flatten and smooth the final board. If I had to choose, it would be the planer. I would really hate to take a 8/4 down to a 4/4 with a drum sander. It would take a long time.

-- Dennis... www.closetdreams.com

Definitely the planer. As mentioned, the planer is for dimensioning and the sander is for finishing.

always,
J.C.

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

Thanks for the info everyone. I now better understand the difference between the uses for the two machines.

I think I am going to use the review by GaryK as well as others and pick up the delta 22-580

Thanks again everyone.

-- David - Houston, Texas.

Until a short time ago I didn’t own a planer or jointer, did all of that part by hand. The greatest joy I have ever felt with any tool I have ever used was the day I plugged my new planer up, and ran a board through it. When you’ve sanded and hand planed as many boards as I have, believe me you think you have died and gone to wood heaven. I would trade all my sanders for a planer, because once the board has been leveled with a planer you can hand sand with a little bit of effort with 220 grit and call the job done.

-- JJohn

I use the planer to get it very close to the final specs. Then I will run it thru the drum sander to smooth it out and leave a flat surface. So, for this I would say go for the planer.

Planer. You could do some of the same thing with a sander but it will take forever, cost a small fortune in sandpaper, generate much more dust, etc. The upside is that you wouldn’t get tearout but it’s usually better to just get close with a planer and do the last little bit with the sander if you’ve got teraout prone wood.

-- Use the fence Luke